Control Line: Scale
THE RYAN FR-1 Fireball is perhaps one of the strangest aircraft used by the US Navy. The Fireball was equipped with a 1,350 horsepower Wright 1820-72W piston engine driving a propeller in its nose, and a General Electric I-16 (J-31) turbojet in its tail for rear propulsion-a unique combination of power plants in an airplane. However odd though, the Fireball was one of the most-successful experiments for the Navy in the transition from piston-driven to jet-powered carrier aircraft. The prototype emerged in June 1945, and the aircraft was in service (there was only 66 of them) for the US Navy until the end of 1947.
Control Line: Scale
THE SUBJECT OF Scale model documentation needs to be explored. Many times the contestant provides too little, too much, or not the right information for the model presented in competition. In a recent issue of Replica, newsletter of the National Association of Scale Aeromodelers (NASA), Russell Knetzger presented some interesting thoughts on Scale documentation. He stressed that the lack of flying skills is not the only thing that keeps many Scale modelers out of serious competition. Russell noted that to the serious Scale modeler, it may seem incredulous that someone would put so much time and effort into building a Scale aircraft and not bother to first obtain full documentation. Such might be the case with many sport fliers who build Scale models without competition in mind, and work only with what easily falls into their hands.
Control Line: Scale
BIPLANES ARE this month's major topic, and the information comes from David Fortuna of Evington VA, who is an avid biplane enthusiast. David states that there are few things prettier in flight than a Scale biplane; properly flown, they are slow, graceful, and majestic in the sky, as were their full-scale counterparts. In the original design concept, biplanes came about largely because two wings produced more lift than a single wing; the extra lift was necessary, since engines of the early period were typically heavy and did not produce a great deal of power.
Control Line Scale
MUSIC WIRE: Building from scratch frequently requires bending music wire for landing gear, internal pushrods for operating control surfaces, or cabane struts supporting the wing. Because it can be hard to figure out where to make bends or how to produce identical bends, it's a good idea to have extra wire in case of errors. The problem is knowing where to clamp the wire in a vise. An approach that works for me is to make the bends working away from the center by measuring in from the ends; this avoids having to measure over a bend to figure where the next one goes. If you start with two identical lengths, your chances of producing two struts of the same shape are pretty good.
Control Line: Scale
DOCUMENTATION: In the June column, I wrote about Scale documentation based on comments by Russell Knetzger in an issue of Replica, the newsletter of the National Association of Scale Aeromodelers (NASA). I wrote about having too little or too much documentation, the need to provide static Scale judges with the proper amount of documentation, and being accurate in what is included in the presentation. One item that I did not include in that column is a subject in itself. It was Russell's suggestion to "doctor" three-views so that they match the balance of documentation where it is obvious that the three-views are obscure or inaccurate compared to the prototype.
